Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg Summer semester 2018

Faculty of Mathematics
Prof. Dr. Rainer Schwabe
Dipl.-Math. oec. Christina Stöhr

Biological Statistics - Exercises

Sheet 3 - Discussion: 25.4. and 26.4.

Problem 8
Suppose that 5% of a population is infected with a particular disease. A random sample
of size n = 10 is drawn.

(a) Which distribution can be used to model the number of infected individuals X
in the sample?
(b) Determine the expected number of infected individuals in the sample.
(c) Calculate the probability, that there are

(i) no infected individuals (ii) at least 8 infected individuals

(iii) at most 1 infected individual (iv) exactly 1 infected individual

in the sample.
(d) For large sample sizes the probabilities can be approximated using the normal
distribution. The probability to have at most x infected individuals in the sample
of size n is approximately given by
!
x − np
P(X ≤ x) ≈ Φ p ,
np(1 − p)

where p is a probability for a randomly chosen person to be infected.

Assume that the sample size is n = 120. Determine approximately the following
probabilities:



(i) P(X ≤ 6) (ii) P X ≤ 4 (iii) P X > 10 .

Hint: The values of Φ(z), i.e. the distribution function of the standard normal distri-
bution, are listed in a table, which can be found on our web page.
Example: For z ≈ 2.64 we have Φ(2.64) = 0.9959.

Problem 9
Find the probability that in a family with 4 children there will be

(a) at least 1 boy; (b) at most 1 boy.

Assume that the birth of a girl and the birth a boy are equally likely.

1
Problem 10
The protein content (in percent per grain) of a certain variety of wheat may be assumed
to be described by a normally distributed random variable X with expected value
µ = 17 and standard deviation σ = 0.4.

(a) What is the probability that a grain of this wheat has a protein content less than
16 percent?

(b) What is the probability that a grain of this wheat has a protein content of more
than 17.5 percent?

(c) What is the probability that a grain of this wheat has a protein content between
16.8 and 17.2 percent?

(d) Determine a value, such that 99% of the grains have a protein content smaller
than or equal to this value. Do the same for 10% and 50%.

(e) Determine the 95% reference region for the protein content.

Problem 11
The number of breakdowns of a machine during a time period of one week is modeled
by a Poisson distribution with a certain parameter value λ > 0.

(a) The probability that no breakdowns happen is known to be 0.8. Calculate the
parameter value λ.

(b) With the parameter value from (a) calculate the probability that at least two
breakdowns happen.